


Altean Benadryl is evil and they should also put english labels on the damn bottles

by GreenhouseNurse



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Fever, Fluff, Foster Care Mention, Gen, Hallucinations, Happy Ending, He gets better, Hurt/Comfort, I declare the healing pod are broken lmao, Langst, Medical Procedures, Medicinal Drug Use, Minor Character Death, Needles, Seizures, Sickfic, Whump, activated charcoal, bad drug trip, commander iverson - Freeform, emeto, he barf, i did actual research what the fuck, it will be later, just mentioned, mentioned - Freeform, nasal feeding tube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-07 23:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11069727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenhouseNurse/pseuds/GreenhouseNurse
Summary: Lance just wanted some stomache medicine.Lance can't read altean.Medicines can have very similar names.This isn't going to end well.(Gift for Anon who likes my prompts on tumblr )





	1. Tripping

**Author's Note:**

> @taylor-tut was talking about the side-effects from benadryl so i combined prompts cause i can do that aaaaaaaaaaaaayy

"-ance. La- -p. Wake u-"

  
"-ot movin-"

  
   Lance opens his eyes, and is pushed into a bout of nausea, by the swirling colors that move above him. Voices are speaking, but they are disjointed and sound like they are underwater.

 A flash of red dashes by on his left, and as he turns his head to follow, the room tumbles on its side, the ceiling switching with the walls.  
  
 Everything is so bright and bile climbs up his throat. As someone is pushing him to sit up (down, sideways?) he falls back in to darkness. The voices don't follow.

* * *

  
 Lance wakes up again to off-color walls and an empty room. The blankets covering his skin are to warm. To loud. He can hear the threads slipping through each other in a grating pattern  that reverberates though his body.

 He pushes the blanket off on to the floor where water pools over the grey metal tiles. An angler fish swims by, it's jaw opening to whisper in the language of stars.  
  
His hand trembles, reaching out to drink from the water and before his fingers can make contact, the door to his room opens. The water recedes in a wave into the hall, and the anglerfish cries with the dying stars, it speaks in the voice of a blackhole. It speaks of a death omen.  
  
A yellow sun and and the white moon rise from the west in rapid succesion, speaking in tounges. The anglerfish dies of suffocation, and the sun crushes it beneath his feet, to reach for Lance's face with scalding hands.  
  
"-ance. Lance buddy. You- -ell us what -dcine you too-"  
  
 The sun's hands comb through Lance's hair, over his  sweating skin, and he can hear the crackling of his skin as it burns off with the touch. The smoke rises to the ceiling, where eyes begin to form. They open, swivelling wildly, as the room starts to burn.  
  
"-ce! It's just me. Pleas-"

  
"-ad reaction to th- -ug?!"

  
"No I thi- ottle!"

  
"H- -an -ake! Clearly sa-"

  
"Can't  read Alte- -rra!"  
  
The sun and moon chant the language of death, and ash falls from the ceiling, covering the world in an acrid smelling darkness. The eyes close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Made some art for this chapter !
> 
> https://greenhousenurseart.tumblr.com/post/162020038354/art-for-chapter-1-of-altean-benadryl-is-evil-and


	2. Charcoal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to wake up Lance.

"-e's waking up! Go get Shiro and Keith!"

Hunk's voice echo's down the hallway from outside Lance's room, and when he opens his eyes to see his friend, it's with great difficulty. His skin feels disgustingly greasy, as if he hasn't bathed in a week and there is a film on his tongue that taste bitter and acidic. When Lance moves to wipe the crust away from his eyes, a pain blossoms in his arm where a needle is feeding fluids in to his body.

Suddenly the calmness that came with waking up to the voice of his best friend is gone. Something is wrong. There is a needle in Lance's arm, he is weak and hungry, and there is a tube up his nose, why is there a tube up his nose? He panics, whining weakly, and tries to tug the tube from his face, but it causes him to gag, it feeds down the back of his throat and-

"Hey buddy it's okay," hands, big and warm and gentle, are grasping his, to tug them away from the tubes" Lance look at me! Your safe. Your safe okay. Can you understand me?"

When he turns to look at Hunk in the face- _why does Hunk look so scared?_ \- he can feel the panic receding through his veins and instead it is replaced by a weariness that seeps into his bones. As Shiro and Keith enter the room, Hunks hand squeeze his own, and Lance notices they are shaking. Hunk stares at him, waiting for an answer to the question that was loaded like a gun. 

Lance tries once to answer but his throat, dry from disuse, only let's him wheeze and then cough, causing his throat to constrict around the tube momentarily choking him. And suddenly he's set into a bout of violent retching, hands are on his back pushing him up- _the feeling is familiar_ \- and someone is gently removing the tube from his nose. It slithers like a worm up his esophagus and what follows from his throat is a stream of bitter pitch black fluid. A flash of red moves toward him- _why is it so familiar_ \- holding something under his chin as his body violently and painfully expels the poison inside of it. His stomach convulses even though there is now probably nothing left for it to give, and a calloused hand wipes away the excess grey foam that clings to the side of his mouth. Saliva and tears drip from his face, his nose bleeds from the tube, and it hurts so bad.

"-Well, this sucks," he finally manages to slur out with some coherency, and Shiro laughs weakly in response, his metal hand rubbing Lance's back.

"Yeah, it sure does."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided I'm making a lot more chapters. I need to practice dialogue and writing and also I can reward myself for each page I get done on my school essay with doing this. So yeah this is not the last chapter.


	3. Alteans are a quiznaking health hazard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge and Allura relabel the medicine bottles, while Pidge gives a lecture on humans.

"I really don't understand why Lance couldn't just shift the cellular structure of his stomach to form transmitters that would funnel the excess chemicals to the exterior of his skin? Wouldn't it be much more efficient for the body to actively circumvent the possibility of a chemical imbalance? Alteans and most anthropomorphous species capable of higher intelligence have fully evolved to-"

Pidge loudly ripped off a portion of label tape from the dispenser she had at her side for what seemed like the three-hundredth time in the half a day she had been in the medical room. She slapped it on to the corresponding bottle so that it not only read in Altean but also in English. They honestly should have done this from the very beginning of their stay in the castle. Especially since she was the only human on board who was partially capable of reading Altean.

She sighed turning to Allura to try explaining again why humans could not just shape shift their illnesses away.

"Allura we can't quiznaking do that, we have livers that funnel out toxins just fine," she said pointedly clacking at her keyboard to type out another label. "We can't just magically make more holes. We have three, they do their job, and if they don't, we go to the hospital!" She finished typing and jabbed the print button.

Allura came over, dropping more bottles into the ever growing and receding pile at Pidge's side, with a huff.

"Yes, I understand that humans have a system that does something similar, but it just seems pointless if it can't immediately recognize all toxins and deal with them," she said as she sat down and began to sort the unlabeled bottles for Pidge.

"You don't have to sort them, I can read the labels just fine," Pidge said labeling a bottle and then moving to grab the one in Allura's hand.

"Well, apparently Lance couldn't learn to read Altean script so forgive me for being cautious," said Allura handing over the bottle.

Pidge snorted in response while turning to print and label the bottle. "No offense princess, but being mauled to death by Altean Hooked On Phonics isn't exactly healthy for the human body either." When Pidge turned back to Allura to grab another bottle. Allura was looking at her like she had grown another head. and then suddenly a light of understanding glowed in Allura's eyes and she began laugh.

"Oh my gods! Did you actually use that program- ahaha," tears streamed down Allura's face as laughter began to interfere with speaking. "I didn't think it still existed -aha oh my word-"

"Allura I almost died! It isn't funny," Pidge shrieked tossing a bottle at Allura's head. "Are you saying that wasn't the actual learning program?! Allura-"

"Ahaha ha hah-"

 


	4. Fractured Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith: "I'm okay."  
> Narrarator: But he wasn't okay :^).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for pain! *clang* Time for pain! *clang* Time for pain! *clang* Time fo-

Keith thought that by now he would be used to this feeling. This gross heavy weight that started somewhere behind his sternum and then slowly over the days would drag down through his rib cage and finally sat at rest in his belly. It feels like a lead weight and with how many times he has carried it through out his life, he should have adjusted to its intermittent reappearances.

Keith should have been used to it by now.

_But he wasn't._

* * *

His earliest memory of the weight in his chest came before he had even reached puberty. It came while he was half asleep and his father tucked him into bed. It began to move beneath his chest when his father brushed Keith's hair from his eyes and tucked it behind his ear, looking  down at him with a look he didn't understand. 

His father stood and walked to the doorway and as he turned off the lights, he turned to Keith and whispered almost inaudibly.

" _I'm so sorry._ "

The weight began to drop.

In the morning when Keith had awoken his father was gone. And although he waited and waited, it didn't matter. When he was finally taken from his empty home, weeks later, the weight had settled in his tummy.

His father never came back.

* * *

The second time the weight fell inside him, was when he had been adopted by an elderly couple who loved him despite being 16 and jaded by the foster care system.

They were patient and understanding no matter how many times he lashed out, because he knew they wouldn't keep him forever, after all why would they, they never had before.

And yet by the time he was 17, he was still in their home, and despite him being jaded and cautious, they still loved him. Despite him not being perfect and malleable to whatever dream image his previous homes had wanted to push on to him, they still called him their son. And for the first time in 8 years, Keith could swear he felt happy.

The weight returned late in his 17th year of life when one of his adoptive moms was found on the kitchen floor, pale and stiff and cold. She died of heart issues that came with old age. There was a funeral and it was small and quiet, and the weight began to roll down his ribs.

His other mom still loved him very much, but at the age of 81 she was tired. She loved Keith so much but the weight was rolling toward his belly and when it hit the bottom seven months later, his mom had followed her wife to the grave.

* * *

 

The third time the weight began to fall was the day he was told Shiro had died on the Kerberos Mission and that _he had been responsible._

There was no slow roll to that pit in his stomach. It was a sudden slam to the bottom that knocked the air from his lungs and brought black spots to his vision.

" _If you want to be a pilot, then you have to understand that people rely on you to keep them safe. If not, you will kill your passengers with idiotic mistakes. Just like Kerberos Pilot Shi-_ "

The third time came not only with a weight, but with the explosion of a supernova, and the end of his career at the Garrison.

As Iverson's blood and spit dripped down his split knuckles, Keith walked out into the desert, to the little house where the weight first fell.

He never looked back.

* * *

 

And now for the forth time in Keith's life the weight was rolling down. When Lance had dropped to the floor, clipping his head on that counter, and started to seize, he had run from the room. Coran had said that Lance would be fine, and he was on the mend, but the prospect of it happening again...

He had just found another family. The weight hangs heavy in his chest and the only thing that Keith can think is,

" _It's going to fall apart again._ "


	5. List

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is healing and so is Keith. The weight stops rolling.

There was an ever growing list of things that lance missed from Earth. The top five were his grandma's jokes, his mom's Ropa Vieja and when she would teach him to cook, his dad's singing, his grandpa's stories, and his sister's laugh. If you were to go farther down the list, at number twenty-nine you would find mint toothpaste. The Alteans had managed to create something of similair purpose, as it did get his teeth clean, but it never quite got rid of the taste of what was last in his mouth. It also didn't help that the cleaning paste had a gritty consistency.  
  
As Lance spat the paste into the sink for the third time, he was coming to the conclusion that his mouth would never stop tasting like burnt wood. He turned on the faucet and watched as the bubbly black foam, stained with charcoal, circled the drain and dissapeared with a low gurgle.  
  
A knock at the door startled him, and his toothbrush clattered from his hand onto the tile, splattering leftover foam onto his feet.  
  
"Lance? I'm coming in, okay?" The door slid open and Keith tentatively inched into the room hands twisting at his shirt. His lower lip had been chewed on to the point of being swollen and red and as he stood next to Lance he rocked on his heels in a motion that made Lance sick to his stomach again.  
  
Lance grasped the fabric of Keith's red jacket to anchor him and stop the back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Drool pooled in his mouth again before he was able to choke the feeling back. He waited until that nausea that had been hovering near the edge subsided.  
  
A leather gloved hand grabbed at his wrist, pulling his hand from the jacket before flipping it palm upward. When Lance looked at Keith, he had a pensive look on his face, teeth once again digging into his bottom lip.  
  
And then two fingers pressed to the pulse point on Lance's wrist. And for a long minute there was only the sound of breathing, and the feeling of a heartbeat that wasn't as strong as it should be, but it was getting there.  
  
And when the minute was gone and Keith had done the unprecedented and pulled Lance into a hug that bruised his ribs, Lance found he didn't have anything to say. Not even when he could feel something hot and wet from where Keiths face was buried in his shoulder.  
  
If you asked what was number six on his list of things he missed, Lance would say it was his brother's hugs. But for now, maybe this would work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi im not dead. I just needed to do finals and get to my A.A. grad ceremony. Updates will come while im on vacation hopefully. This fic is fun to write so it will keep updating!

**Author's Note:**

> Lmao wats a beta


End file.
